I am so excited! Yesterday in the evening, Cody (who had had a temperature of 37.6) and Nick (who had had a temperature of 37.8) were brought back from the hospital to the hotel. I have never seen anyone so happy! We were all planning to dress up in robes and slippers to welcome them into the quarantine hotel, but unfortunately they arrived at 5pm and we were still getting our temperatures read.

After a joyous greeting, Cody and Nick told us about their experience in the hospital. It sounded horrendous! Again, there was no air conditioning and they were in sweltering heat, but they did not even have showers to keep cool. Actually, the two boys had been unable to change their clothing for the past three days! They had been kept under close watch at the hospital and their temperature was taken almost every hour (including during the night). And what I find to be the worst part of all, they were not allowed to leave their small room to even walk around! These two completely healthy boys were confined to a bed for three days and monitored more harshly than humanly possible. They also came in starving. Their meals had been awful. For dinner one day they received four pieces of bread. For lunch another, they received a slice of ham. It seems strange to me that they would be treated this way, this kind of treatment is what can make a person sick!

Any ways, we are very glad to have them back and they are very glad to be back. We received a bunch of goodies yesterday and have had a ton of fun with them. The US embassy sent over a bunch of books and magazines to keep us occupied, the people to people group brought us 8 Chinese hackey sacks (which we have to be careful not to play with too much for fear of raising our body temperature) and a bunch of candy. We all appreciated the candy!!

"One of Brandie's (our leader) friends also came over to give us a DVD player, some DVDs and the best surprise of all....PIZZA!! We were able to received the DVD player and the DVDs, but we were all extremely disappointed when we were unable to have the pizza Brandie's friend had graciously brought for us. The reason for that was the pizza had not been watched while it had been made. So, some drugs or sedatives could have been slipped into it. We were all really happy with the DVD player (which we haven't quite gotten to work because the control and the directions are in Chinese) but we were also really frustrated that we couldn't have our comforting westernized food.

One thing that I personally thought was funny and a bit ridiculous was the care that was taken into giving us our packages so as not to get the people handling them "contaminated." They were handed from the person who brought them to a government official. The government official then put it on the ground and a doctor would pick it up. The doctor would then come over to the fence we were standing behind, place the package down, and slide it under the bars. We also tried to give some money to Brandie's friend for the DVD's she had bought, but of course that was unsuccessful as well - the money was contaminated and was not allowed to touch the outside world.

I just wanted to let you know we are all doing fine, so don't worry - just hot and bored. I think on Monday they're going to release us and we're all very excited.